This case has been cited 2 times or more.
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2000-06-08 |
QUISUMBING, J. |
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| As to the penalty. When more than one person is killed on the occasion of the robbery, the additional killing should be appreciated as an aggravating circumstance to avoid the anomalous situation where, from the standpoint of the gravity of the offense, robbery with one killing would be on the same level as robbery with multiple killings.[33] At the time of the commission of the offense on January 30, 1987, the penalty for robbery with homicide under Article 294 of the Revised Penal Code was reclusion perpetua to death. In view, however, of the subsequent suspension of the death penalty by the 1987 Constitution, favorable to appellant,[34] the proper penalty is reclusion perpetua, a single indivisible penalty regardless of the attending aggravating or mitigating circumstances.[35] The trial court, therefore, properly imposed the sentence of reclusion perpetua on appellant. | |||||
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2000-03-07 |
QUISUMBING, J. |
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| Appellant insists that he neither robbed nor killed Virginia Talens. He vehemently denies being the last person seen with the victim alive. He instead points to prosecution witness Orlando Pangan and his son, Richard Pangan, as the most likely malefactors. We note, however, that appellant failed to rebut Orlando Pangan's testimony that it was appellant who was last seen with the victim alive about 3:00 a.m. of March 6, 1992, in the company of appellant who was her next-door-neighbor. [23] Denial is an inherently weak defense which must be buttressed by strong evidence of non-culpability to merit credibility. [24] Denial is negative and self-serving and cannot be given greater evidentiary weight over the testimonies of credible witnesses who positively testified that appellant was at the locus criminis and was the last person seen with the victim alive. [25] | |||||